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Friday, 14 March 2014

In my defence I thought they had been out
years, though it turns out the naked looking Dwarfs are called “Orcs”, and this
new 40k army with its guns and planes are called “Dwarfs” (not, on pain of some
yet-to-be-determined fate, “Dwarves”). Glad that’s settled.

My time has instead been taken up with the
far more interesting pursuits of work, life, Warhammer and, critically, nothing
involving short dudes with bad attitude and helicopters. That, and buying
random X Wing stuff despite never having played a game of it.

And now, a very short recap of the last
event I went to.

A couple of weeks ago now a mighty
gathering of wargamers took place in the true jewel of the North of England –
Stockport.

The reason, Bjorn Supremacy 3.5 – a 4
player team event.

The Bjorn event series, run by a chap who
used to be someone or other called Tom, is the UK’s taste of the (in) famous
Swedish comp pack. I went to the last singles event with my drink-fuelled Vlad
VC list, and couldn’t help thinking the whole comp would be far more
interesting in a team format. Cue some bullying and the team event was born.

Team events have become an established part
of the UK scene recently (cure rage at rankings point inflation it brings) but
this one was going to be different. The combined comp scores for the 4 armies
in each team had to fall between 39 and 43 Swedish Comp Points. If you don’t
know what that is…. Google it? Or try this link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7619038/Swedish%20Comp%20System%20v1.11.1.pdf

I teamed up with two nice chaps and a
fellow from Liverpool for this event - Steve (DoC, 8 comp score), Dr “The
Master” Potter (DE, 12 comp score), Raf (that’s me by the way) (LM, 14 comp
score) and Matty (VC, 7 comp score). Alas we could not find an Ernest or an
Emmanuelle to act as our coach, water boy, mascot or cheerleader, so our team
name had to settle with SPRM.

Andy was our Captain, a responsibility I
was keen to avoid, having done it far too often before. I really can’t
recommend this whole “not being a captain” thing enough. Makes the whole thing
far more fun.

Our lists were as follows:

Because of the need to meet the team cap,
the keen eyed amongst you will realise that these are not the necessarily lists
you would expect to see in a singles event. And that’s why I liked it.

So, after a nice 4am start on the Saturday
and a two hour train journey to the aforementioned Northern Jewel, things were
ready to kick off.

First up, we were facing the aptly named
(or so I am told) SLAGS.

My tasty morsel? A pure Nurgle DoC list
ably piloted by Mr Crabtree.

#NurgleFilth

Here is the thing with pure Nurgle lists
(and I am talking PURE, none of this “my SkullCannon has puss coming out of it,
it counts, right?” nonsense…) they have no real ranged threat and little that
NEEDs to be stopped in the magic phase (well, he didn’t roll the vortex, so
that helped). This means you can focus on dealing with their infamous combat
units whilst trying to and find a way to get the juicy points for the GUO.

Yes. I have a lot of dice. Far more not in this picture.

Aware from experience that one scar vet was
not enough to deal with flies (especially a unit of 5 of them!), I ganged up
the Vets and all four went (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) fly hunting. They
were in one unit for two sound tactical reasons – firstly, one unit of 4 Scar
Vets is cool, and secondly (and less importantly) it makes buffing them easier.
The side effect of this epic winningness is that they also all fail charges
together. Every time.

Where has the Great Unclean One gone? Poor thing!

Pulling his flies back from their certain
doom, Dave advanced with his foot troops, and then made probably the only real
mistake of the game (4 vets in one unit, as we have established, not being a
mistake, but rather an avatar of winningness). He exposed his Great Unclean One
(insert joke here) on one turn where I was able to bring enough skinks to bear
to take him down. That, on top of the 300pt head start I had from comp, meant
he had to push. With magical dominance established, the Slann and his Temple
Guard friends got to partying and killed most of the remaining daemons,
repelling beasts and plague bearers alike. Nearby the true combat elites of
both armies (Nurglings and Skink cohorts) fought to a bitter end.

I got to face one of the chief disciples of
the church of the fabled RatStar. But this one was the RatStar2.0 – the return
of the Wizarding Hat!

I was ok with this game going in. 200 point
head start, no Grey Seer to turn Slann into frogs or anything. We spent some
time joking about the stupidity of the Hat. And then he rolled for his
Wizarding Hat spells.

And he got Dwellers….

This was bad.

Cure frantic calls to the captain – firstly
in an attempt to get Chris kicked out for some reason or other, and, when that
didn’t work, to cry.

No scroll and a s3 Slann had me worried. He
had more drops, so was not even like I could hide all that well. Add to this
the fact he could come at me 10” a turn, and not care if the wizard died.

I honestly had no clue what to do.

Arrgh! Don't know what to do! Quick! Deploy in lines!

Deploying in lines I threw stuff to its
death in an attempt to buy time whilst I thought of *something*.

His first turn was ominous. A unit and
accompanying Scar Vet Dwellers’d off the table. Things were looking very very
bad. I picked up the Doomwheels and decided this whole sitting at the back
thing was not going to work at all. I advanced.

Pre Dwellers

Post Dwellers...

And then it happened.

Seeing a classic “8th edition
charge” for the RatStar into the Temple Guard, he pulled the trigger – thereby
saving me from Dwellers. And then the Wizard Warlord proceeded to blow himself
and half his unit up.

The Temple Guard and Old Blood proceeded to
utterly rip the unit apart in short order. From there I went all out on the
offensive.

2634 VPs scored, 20-0 win. Team capped.
Mission accomplished.

The third, fateful game was always likely
to happen.

Arguably the current *Super Team* of
the UK team events (helped that they go to more than anyone else), Team
#FatCraig were the hot favourites going into the event.

I got to face none other than the
progenitor (well, some say it was actually Az, but Craig gets upset if you say
that) of the RatStar. #FatCraig himself (that name if apparently ok btw,
firstly because it makes him pseudo famous, and secondly because he is not
close to fat).

Hot off the back of the epic SlannRat game
at the Masters, I was looking forward to this.

I think that if he played aggressively
against me I would get a big win, and hoped he would (but knew he probably
wouldn’t.

The table definitely did not help. 3
buildings and an impassable terrain piece in a vague semi-circle round one
corner of the table allowed for perfect defensive play.

The RatStar chills out. And Craig's Bastiladon epically fails to hurt its master...

There is not too much to say about the game
itself really (well, some cool tricks Craig pulled off, but I don’t want to
spoil them), other than to say it is always a pleasure to play Craig. My one
massive regret here is that my team mate Matty was going down BIG vs their DoC,
and the news from our DoC was also bad. So I pushed too much, losing a good
300+ points more than I needed/should have.

[SPOILER – this ended up being a very big
deal – having an accurate view of the team’s position is vital].

In the end, only 732 points scored, 11-9
win, Team lost 34-46. Bad times.

I then had a great evening involving drink,
a drawing lesson and a kebab the size of my head...

I am pretty sure I sold my soul that evening too...

Onto day 2!

We knew we had to cap our last two rounds,
and hope that #FatCraig dropped enough points, to stand a chance of winning.

Roll up the Kamikazee Warriors. For me: an
8 scoring DE list piloted by Phil.

I was 600 points up to begin with, so was
feeling relatively comfortable, bearing some crazy final transmutation
goodness. My cunning plan was to simply ignore the fast cav, giving them some
stuff to play with whilst looking to pick up points from the infantry.

If we all deploy over here, we can pretend there aren't 10 Warlocks on our right flank...

This
went largely according to plan, and I managed to deal with the peg riders early
doors. I was, however, worried about the massive Black Guard unit and the
points it could pick up.

The Pegs commit.

Until I pulled off the trap. As they
advanced towards me, the Black Guard and BSB ended a turn in a forest. The
mighty Old Blood charged out of his unit into their flank, secure in the
knowledge that he would be stubborn and probably not die. That freed up the
rest of my army to pick on the rest of his infantry. The Old Blood did
eventually kill the Black Guard and BSB to a man, and by that point the game
was over.

The trap is sprung!

Lovely game, the matchup was just too in my
favour for much to happen.

2750 points to me, 20-0 win. Team capped.
Mission still on.

Final showdown!

Last up was Team Middle Earth – an
unusually ‘nice’ name for a team full of filth, including no other than
occasional contributor Panzer himself.

For me: Slatch and his Monster Mash WoC
army coming in at an 8.

I wasn’t sure about this matchup at all.
Not one bit, but did think that magic and shooting would soften things up and
should be able to get the wind.

I was officially upset I didn't get the side with the buildings...

The magic… well, there was no magic. My
winds of magic, from memory, were 2, 3, 3, 4 and eventually a 6 (or something).
I was very worried about Wulfrick, and set up traps to pin him in should he
arrive. Annoyingly for me he didn’t turn up till very late, by which point the
elements I had put in place to stop him had had to be committed to other things
(not very clever element – plan was to tie the unit down with Scar Vet).

Galrauch's Party Friends! Unfortunately phone died after this :-(

In a scene that would do credit to some 300-inspired action film, the whole game boiled down to a last stand by the Temple
Guard. First a wave of chariots and Chimera smashed into them (and their
accompanying characters). Then Galrauch, Wulfrick and a Chimera smashed into
the survivors. Wulfrick said something truly mean to the Slann so that the
sleeping frog got all angry and had to accept the challenge. The mighty Slann,
destroyer of mountains and general of a thousand victories, was pummelled to
death by this random barbarian with a penchant for foreign languages in two rounds of combat. No longer stubborn but
clearly filled with some incandescent rage, the Temple Guard (and characters)
brought down the evil Dragon, his Chimera sidekick and the accursed Wulfrick.
With only two of the regiment left, they charged the marauders, routing them
and leaving only the BSB alive in the middle of the table, having finally
killed the Scar Vet tasked with holding him up.

In an epic side story of this battle, one
unit of Skink Cohorts picked on the mighty Shaggoth, wounding it twice with
some shooting. Taking the charge of the fell beast (and wounding it again in
their reaction), they held. In the ensuing combat, they shrugged off its blows,
wounding it again, and causing it to flee in terror. It rallied, turned around,
only to be brought down by the very same skinks.

Skink Cohorts. The. Best. Unit. In. The.
Book.

2865 VPs to me, 19-1 win. Team capped.

We had done all we could, but it was not to
be. #FatCraig finished a point ahead of us… Thinking back to those 300 odd
points I threw away game 3…. Sigh.

But seriously - well done done them!

Still, we took out second place, which is
better than not.

On personal level it went well, 90 TPs,
11420 vps. "Bloodiest" Award. All about me right?

Good times!

Overall, a fantastic event – I can’t
recommend the Bjorn series enough. That being said, probably happy there is no
more Swedish comp events happening until November. You can have too much of a
good thing.

Monday, 10 March 2014

It has been said, on many an occasion, on
more than one medium (TWF counts as a medium, right?), and by at least three
people (including myself), that we are in a Golden Age of Warhammer.

Not being one that likes to contradict
myself (ok, who am I kidding?), I obviously have to agree with the general
statement.

Almost all (and arguably all the ones that
matter) armies have been given a new 8th edition hardback army book
in a never-before-seen flurry of release activity. There are FAQs that deal
with most of the main issues in the game (sure, they feel like they are from a
bygone era, but still, they are there). Paints… well, paints are paints, but
there seem to be a lot of those around too.

Game balance continues to improve. An ever
increasing number of UK events are, or as close as we are likely to see, ‘no
comp’ – or at least, they are when the armies hit the table, the majority of
comps focusing on army builds rather than game mechanics. Events of such scale
as to be the envy of the international Fantasy world sell out in literally
seconds. Clubs appear to be growing all over the place in the former gaming vacuum
that is the first city of this fair isle.

I should be dancing through the rain in
boundless joy at the state of things (a sentiment robbed of some thrust by
unusually nice weather in London today).

At yet, I find myself wistful, longing for
what is no more.

Do I think that the early days of 8th
were without problems? Not at all. The combination of 8th ed
mechanics and latter day 7th ed book power creep was a terrifying
thing to behold. Was every book even close to equal? Not even close.

Is this simply a case of me sulking that my
two chosen books did not receive exciting revamps, but rather dull (though
arguably effective) face paint? Perhaps, this could well be it, but I do not
think so.

No – I look at the armies upon the scene
now and feel a twinge of despair.

Taken as collective and you would not be
surprised to see them all in a bizarre convention that simultaneously attracted
Panzer Division reenactors, “Build a Deathstar” Kickstarter pledgees and
Orlando Bloom fetishists. Sure, the second one would be rather cool, but I
worry about the first and last.

The big draw of 8th edition is
that it enables armies to feel more like armies. This is in every single way a
good thing. Unfortunately we now appear to be moving away from this.

MSU (for a fortnightly definition of the
term, check out The Bad Dice Podcast) armies were unique (or at least,
different) and interesting because they were, quite simply, relatively rare.
Working out how to deal with them whilst also gearing up to take on several combat
units was a fantastic list-building challenge.

Now I look upon the armies at clubs,
tournaments and online and the overall theme is apparent:

Dark Elf armies are all Curry-esque in
their fast cav goodness.

High Elf armies are all Swedish-esque (or
whoever it is taking credit for that list this week) blocks of stubborn immune
to magic gunlines.

Empire Elector Counts are frantically
lending each other the keys to their Steam Tanks in some Teutonic swingers
party somewhere (Jack has that effect on people it seems – I read somewhere GW
have sold out of Steam Tanks). Those that lose out on Tank fun console
themselves in silky sheets whilst cuddling 1+ armour.

Daemon armies delighted everyone with the
wane of Nurgle, only to be replaced by an and endless tide of Terry-esque (or
Ben or Russ-esque) MSU gunline goodness.

Every Warriors of Chaos player seems to
have read the book, and taken the obvious stuff, and yes, that is MSU.

Every Orc and Goblin army is a Ben-esque
gunline that prides itself on being much more effective at doing this than
Dwarfs.

Gosh darn it, even VC are getting into the
MSU action these days.

Now, I am talking in generalities. I
appreciate that not everyone who uses such an army is doing so because someone
relatively well known in the world of internet forums/podcasts has done so
before. I also fully appreciate that some of these people use them because they
enjoy it.

But…

I miss infantry. And not “50 White Lions with
Banner of World Dragon and 50 Archers” infantry. I miss infantry armies.

I miss Orc units Waaaghing into combat. I
miss WS10 Ghouls. I miss Frenzied Corsairs. I miss (though I shudder to say it)
Bloodletters. I miss Black Guard. I miss Skrox units. I miss Grave Guard. I
miss magical VC charges. I miss Wood Elves being able to shoot stuff off
because it had less armour and moved slower. Hell, I even miss 12 dice
Mindrazor.

Most of all though, I miss that short
sliver of time when most people did not know what was going on and all sorts of
things made the table.

When did all the armies become so
homogenous? Can anything be done about it?

A certain Craig person who was briefly
famous when there was a rankings system in existence broke the mould of the
Skaven book, and then Skaven left the scene, leaving the “RatStar” as the
“norm”. That was probably the last great escape attempt we have seen. Maybe
Sweeting’s “BigBossStar” would count, but even then, the rest of the list is a
gunline.

Comp may well be the answer. Scenarios too,
if they managed to make something truly different, but very few of these alter
the basic army builds we see everywhere. Even the potential cure of blonde and
handsome Viking comp quickly settles into the norm after one go around. It will
be interesting to see what effect, if any, the SCGT comp has on the scene,
especially if this year it is borrowed by more events. It does ask the question
of how much you want to play the comp roulette. All my lists are in the 0-1
Comp Point mark. I know people only looking at 8+. This implies there will be
some notable variation to be seen.

We shall see, and we can only hope.

Do I blame anyone for this? Not really.

We like to compete.

If you create a list and people copy it, that’s flattering. You have little recourse to
complain (unless someone figures out a way to patent any of it…). If you see a
cool idea you want to do not doing it because it has been done is stupid on the
face of it.

And feel good that, whatever goes on, we
are better off than 40k.

In the meantime, I am going to keep it real
and go Old Skool.

And take Dwellers.

An aside

Several longer articles are in the works (including
a recap of the incredibly fun Bjorn Teams event) – life and work conspiring to prevent
their completion. So I thought I would fill time with thoughts as they strike
me. Whilst they strike me, before I can censor myself…

About Me

Who am I? Well, that’s deep!
In short, a half Brazilian, half British Warhammer tournament player with an opinion on pretty much everything!
Welcome to RaffazzaTime – a blog predominantly focused on my take on my hobby and the Warhammer tournament scene in the UK.
I have been in and around the hobby since 1994 – with a big break in the early 2000s. Have actively played Warhammer, 40k, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Mordheim, Epic, Battlefleet Gothic and even some GorkaMorka at various times. Been active in the UK WFB tournament scene since the release of 8th edition.
This blog will be my ramblings on the game, tournaments, lists, and maybe even some introspective soul-searching ;)

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